Canada Supreme Court to revisit decision banning assisted suicide

OTTAWA (Reuters) - The Supreme Court of Canada agreed on
Thursday to take another look at a decision it made in 1993
upholding a ban on assisted suicide, setting up a new battle
over the right to die.

The case involves Gloria Taylor, an Amyotrophic Lateral
Sclerosis (ALS) patient and activist, who joined the right to
die lawsuit in 2011. Taylor died of her illness, informally
called Lou Gehrig's disease, in 2012.

The family of a second woman, Kay Carter, who traveled to
Switzerland to end her life, were also plaintiffs. Assisted
suicide is legal in Switzerland, along with a handful of other
European jurisdictions and a few U.S. states.

"This is a big one dealing with something we will all one
day face - how, when and under what circumstances we head for
the exit sign," said constitutional lawyer Eugene Meehan, who
has argued numerous cases before the court.

Canada's Supreme Court last considered assisted suicide two
decades ago with the case of Sue Rodriguez, who also suffered
from ALS.

The court ruled nobody could legally assist in another's
death, regardless of terminal illness, pain, prolonged suffering
or an expressed wish to die.

A lower court in the western province of British Columbia
has since struck down Canada's ban on assisted suicide. But the
B.C. Court of Appeals reversed the decision last year and made
it clear that any reversal of the ban would have to be done by
the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court majority was a narrow 5-4 in the 1993
Rodriguez decision that it was constitutional to prohibit
doctor-assisted suicide. Meehan noted that the sole judge left
on the court from that time is Beverley McLachlin, now chief
justice, and she was in the dissent.

Since 1993 pressure for assisted suicide has persisted. Last
year the Quebec government introduced a bill to legalize it,
arguing this was a matter of health care under provincial
jurisdiction, not a criminal matter in the federal bailiwick.

Opposing it are religious groups as well as organizations
representing people with disabilities, which argue that making
it easier to end people's lives is a slippery slope that makes
them feel vulnerable.

In her 1993 dissenting opinion in Rodriguez, McLachlin
admitted to some evidence in other countries "that legal codes
which permit assisted suicide may be linked to cases of
involuntary deaths of the aging and disabled."

However, she wrote that such unwanted actions should be
caught by Canada's Criminal Code, which could be strengthened if
necessary by requiring a judge's order to allow doctor-assisted
suicide.

One principle guiding courts generally is that of "stare
decisis," meaning that precedents should stand. However, the
rule is not cast in stone, and Meehan said the Supreme Court of
Canada has tended to be willing to revisit specific areas after
about a decade.

The name of the current case is Lee Carter et al. v.
Attorney General of Canada et al. (35591)